Dog Beach
Recently, I took my son to the beach. Specifically, a local beach in San Diego called, “Dog Beach”. As you can imagine, it is where people bring their dogs to play in the ocean and run around on the sand. It is a really fun atmosphere, especially if you are dog lovers like we are. San Diego plug here – if you’re ever in the San Diego area, you should check it out.
The thing about Dog Beach is that it is located in an area where parking is a hot commodity. It is not uncommon to park half a mile or so away from the beach and walk to it. That is exactly what Silas (my son) and I had to do on our visit. We parked and then began our long walk to the beach, crossing under multiple stoplights, storefronts, hotels, and many other recreational activities often negatively associated with beach living. We had conversations about the things he saw, as he is a curious kid – probably a topic for another post. It is a potentially scary, overwhelming walk for an 8 year old kid, so he stayed close to me the entire time.
As we passed by people and places, walking across streets and crosswalks, I repeated this phrase to him: Stay With Me. As we talked, I would insert this phrase along the way, making sure he knew to stay by my side as we navigated our way together to our destination. Stay With Me. I would say it, and he would reply with, “got it dad”, and he would walk step in step with me on our way to Dog Beach.
Along the way, I started to think about my own journey with God, having specifically leaned into the Heavenly Father piece of my relationship with Him in recent years. God has so much for us through His character, and His love for us as a Father is one that resonates with me in my current phase of life. As a dad of a middle schooler and elementary schooler, life is a ministry. And it is my favorite ministry. This has caused me to push in deeper to my relationship with God, and my prayers have begun to reflect the dynamic of a son seeking time with his dad.
As I have leaned into this part of my relationship with God, He has given me a new perspective on the ups and downs of life. Like our walk to Dog Beach, this life has many people, places, stoplights and crosswalks. Sometimes, there are obstacles, unsafe areas, beautiful views, and unknowns around the corner. And just like I repeated to Silas on our walk, God has given us the same conversational reminder: Stay With Me.
Jesus said this to His followers in the Gospel of John around 2000 years ago: Remain in Me. What He was saying to them was essentially, “Stay With Me”. God knows that a relationship with Him is the only thing that can actually carry us through this life. Jesus knew His followers would deal with difficulties, ups, downs, confusion, chaos, heartache, fear, and everything imaginable on their journey to help people know Him. And God knows that we deal with everything we see and experience in our lives today. So, He tells us: Stay With Me.
When life feels like a long walk to Dog Beach, remember what Jesus said a few thousand years ago: Stay With Me. Focus on your relationship with God, learning more what it means to know and follow Him. We experience more of His character when we stick close by Him and follow His Way. The walk to Dog Beach is still the walk, but it is not something we have to do alone. Like Silas did, find comfort in those words: Stay With Me.